At the risk of sounding like the ignorant American I am, I’m blogging about the vuvuzelas at the World Cup again.
I’m not the only one who’s been annoyed by the sound of the hornet-swarm-from-hell that apparently loves soccer:
Now I have no idea how many people have to search for “vuvuzela annoying” for it to register with Google’s auto-fill feature, but I’m going to say it’s somewhere between “a hell of a lot” and “everyone everywhere.”
I was heartened yesterday when I heard that World Cup CEO Danny Jordaan wouldn’t rule out a ban on the plastic trumpety things. Turns out, he only meant they’d be banned if they’re being used as weapons. In other words, they’re here to stay.
I respect tradition and I don’t think people should have to tone down their enthusiasm either. But I think Jordaan’s response (We think they’re FUN! / Just hit mute!) to a legit complaint is lacking.
Like many Americans, soccer isn’t a part of daily life for me. (I mean, I call it soccer.) But this is the World Cup. It means more to most Earthlings than the Olympics, so I’m trying to stay informed and engaged. Part of that process is just learning about the game itself, which — I’m not too embarrassed to say — still escapes me at times. I’m still getting used to the clock counting up. The play-by-play commentary helps a lot, teaches me what to watch for. So muting the TV has its drawbacks.
It’s almost like being invited to a party where they’re blasting techno the whole time. You ask the host if they could turn it down so you can have a conversation with the person standing next to you, only to be told that you can either go outside (and miss the party) or plug your ears (and block out the noise you want to hear, too).
I joked on Facebook yesterday that I wished my TV had a vuvuzela audio filter. As dumb as it sounds, the solution might not be far from that. Can’t we come up with a way to let the fans in the stadium enjoy themselves making all the noise they want without bugging the crap out of everyone else?
Let’s get some people on that. Or it’s going to be a long month.
What do you think? Leave your thoughts/suggestions in the comments.
